


Flip Side

by Mastodontosaurus



Category: Star Trek: Enterprise, Star Trek: The Next Generation
Genre: Adventure, Friendship, Gen, Transporter Malfunction, Vanishing Point
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-01
Updated: 2020-08-01
Packaged: 2021-03-05 22:40:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 12,070
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25642948
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mastodontosaurus/pseuds/Mastodontosaurus
Summary: A continuation of 'Vanishing Point.' We know transporters aren't perfect; who says the story stopped there?
Kudos: 7





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> It's helpful if readers have seen Star Trek: Next Generation's episode 'Second Chances,' but not necessary to pick up on the general idea. Any feedback is very welcome!

It was becoming difficult to hear it over the howl of the wind, but the communicator's chirping was unmistakable. There was still a chance.

"Come in, Enterprise," Hoshi tried, cupping her hand around the microphone in an attempt to block out interfering winds, "Enterprise, come in." Too much time had passed, but there was nothing else she could do. "Enterprise, this is Ensign Sato ready for transport." Nothing. "Crewman Baird, narrow the receiver to this band. Enterprise, come in." That assumed Baird was even at the comm station. Her hair was whipping around her as the wind dragged at every surface. "Enterprise!" She couldn't even hear the chirp of her communicator.

She had briefly seen and felt the bright tingling sensation of the transporter after the commander had dematerialized. But something had clearly gone wrong, because the transporter room had never materialized, Lieutenant Reed at the console was not to be seen, nor Commander Tucker. She still stood with her equipment in hand like some obtuse child who could not fathom having missed the bus. Of course the lightening-filled tornado storm was bearing down on her location. And of course, it wasn't just a few thunderclouds, as the captain had so dismissively put it; this storm could damage a sentient being's nervous system. Of course.

Nervously, Hoshi squinted over her shoulder, straining to see past the wind, bearing particles of sand and dirt. Commander Tucker had said they couldn't wait out the storm in the caves – the storm was too strong but screw it, she was out of options.

Staggering through the gale, she only vaguely registered hitting herself with her equipment case in her exaggerated motions. Reaching the stone structure's entrance, Hoshi would have taken a final moment to her communicator but for the howling shove she received. She was out of time, and now she needed to take better cover, thick walls or no.

The structure's original purpose was not abundantly clear, but the attention to detail paid to the carvings in chamber after chamber had Hoshi willing to bet they had discovered a religious site of some kind. If comparisons to Earth, Vulcan or other cultures recorded in the Vulcan database were anything to go by, a religious site could be either a blunt disappointment or a jackpot for shelter. From temples to churches to family homes, communities tended to need places to hide things and people over the centuries. Where there was religion, there was strife.

Hoshi still could not believe her fortune. Enterprise had only decided to visit this place because of the conflicting readings. It was an M class planet. It's atmosphere had a slightly lower percentage of oxygen than Earth, but that was not uncommon. It's gravitational pull was negligibly stronger. It had an abundance of liquid water and an evolved community of plant, fungal, insect and small animal life. It had temples, for goodness sake. Where were the people? If there were no indigenous humanoid lifeforms, where were the colonists?

Whoever they were, Hoshi was ready to add a footnote to the carving that celebrated the tall guy. Someone had thought to put in a basement level. She was going to kiss Subcommander T'Pol when she got back. She had insisted Hoshi take another scanner with her, so she would not have to trade back and forth with Trip. Without it, she never would have found the trap door and the uneven steps down into the side of the mountain. Closed, dark space or not, she wasn't about to play around with her nervous system.

Once she had found as safe a place to wait out the storm as she was ever going to, Hoshi nearly drove herself up the walls doing the actual waiting. Each time she checked the time, only a few moments had passed. Only a few minutes. Only a few hours. How long was it due to last? No more than a few hours, T'Pol had said. But that had not accounted for the larger storm just behind the first.

Hoshi had been initially comforted by the thought that Enterprise was only just beyond the atmosphere, maintaining orbit. The captain would likely be pressuring Trip to "fix it" while T'Pol maintained order. Reed was probably letting his waters run deep until it was all over, when he would let loose and leave Enterprise's gym one punching bag short. Though he hid it well, it was clear to her that he had been rattled ever since his communicator had fallen into alien hands. Travis was probably keeping an even keel at the helm, ready to jump when the captain called for his expertise in some daring plan. He was likely also keeping an eye on Baird, who …

She rubbed her temples. Baird was almost certainly at her station by now, since Crewman Case was the junior-most member of her department, and Crewman Schaub was gamma shift.

"Program freeze," Riker ordered. It was clear why Deanna had sent him here. How she knew this had happened before, the Lieutenant didn't know. Ensign Sato had lived and served aboard the warp five NX-01 Enterprise two hundred years ago. Being marooned for almost a decade had likely left Thomas Riker with enough material to fill a psychologist's doctoral thesis. That said, there wasn't much that was new in terms of being left and presumed dead or lost. People had been stranding or marooning themselves or others, on islands, planets, in space stations, bunkers, and the like for millenia. "How does a computer simulation even have data to use from a stranded crewman two centuries ago?" He had posed the question rhetorically, but the holodeck program promptly answered.

"Ensign Hoshi Sato was stranded with an away kit standard for the 2150s. This included equipment for recording field observations." Thomas rolled his eyes.

"Program, fast forward to when the storm ends." Riker had always thought he had been a pacer, but the woman, seemingly half his height, appeared to zoom around as a blue blur, showing hours worth of walking in a few seconds. The program slowed and the sounds of the storm lessened to the point where the last faint whistling died down. The ensign pulled out a recording device.

"Note, my nervous system seems intact thus far, and the storm seems to have moved on. Hopefully, whatever radiation the storm had has dispersed, but I'm going out regardless." With that, she picked up the metal case with her and felt her way up the stone steps, which were likely designed by a people somewhat taller than her.

"Sato to Enterprise, come in." Nothing. "This is Ensign Hoshi Sato hailing Enterprise, ready for transport." No response. "Baird, can you hear me? I'm going to the shuttlepod, I'll hail Enterprise from there. Sato out." It was at that moment that Hoshi caught sight of Shuttlepod One rising from beyond a copse of trees at the base of the mountain. It turned and flew off and shrank beyond the distance.

If Thomas had not had a sore spot for abandonment, the look of blank uncomprehending on Sato's face might have been comically endearing.

"Sato to Enterprise, did you beam the commander down to pick up Shuttlepod One? Or maybe Travis?" Still no response. "Enterprise, aren't you forgetting something, like your communications officer?" The attempt at humor was strained.

Thomas was not sure he wanted to keep watching if it meant seeing this part but in the end, a sense of morbid curiosity won out.

It was like watching a younger, female version of himself switch from frustrated anticipation to denial to calm expectation to anger to fear to hopelessness to expectant denial again. The convoluted mood swings were both fascinating and repugnant to Thomas. 'Get it together,' he wanted to shout. But from what he remembered from his fourth grade history class, when most every Earth child studied the first crew of human's foray beyond the Sol system, Hoshi Sato was a linguist. She had famously been the youngest of the crew and could be no older than her midtwenties by this point. In the throws of yet another muted tantrum, she looked even younger.

"Program, fast forward a day." The blue blur paced around again, fiddled with the communicator, made reports to an ancient recording device, played with some rocks and dug around in the field kit. Night fell, and Sato had opted not to go inside, lest the temple walls inhibit contact. Instead, she brushed some loose earth from next to a rock that formed a berm. Curling around the field kit case as a makeshift security blanket, the strung out ensign fell into a doze.

"Pause program." Thomas took a moment to observe the frozen figure. Deanna could not possibly want him to live through everything all over again. "Riker to Troi,"

"Troi here."

"I'm in Holodeck 3, like you suggested. What am I doing here, exactly?"

"That's for you to decide, Thomas." Of course she'd be coy.

"I can see that. What am I supposed to accomplish here?"

"Thomas," Her voice always had a whittling effect on him. "Hoshi Sato is most famous for her role aboard the NX-01, especially during the Xindi wars, and for creating the matrix for the Universal Translator, the basis of which is still used by the Federation today." She sounded like she was reading the woman's biography. "But many of the Enterprise's crew accomplished more during their careers than just test and develop technologies."

"Deanna, where are you going with this?" No sooner were the words out of his mouth than the holodeck doors slid open to reveal the counselor. Just behind her was a somewhat bemused Commander William Riker, and it was apparent he had the same questions in mind.

"I thought it might be beneficial if the two of you worked through some of your feelings together." She made it sound so simple, as if joint therapy was the go-to treatment plan for long-lost-and-reunited duplicates. She nodded towards the napping Ensign. "She has just spent her first night on the planet under the Temple. She's now trying to wait out her second night outside, hoping Enterprise will beam her back and she'll wake up onboard."

"Just how well do you know this program?" Will asked. "Is it standard counselor training?" Will seemed impervious to it, but Deanna's smiling non-answer and shrug was almost painful to Thomas.

"Computer, skip to morning."

Hoshi awoke feeling both stiff and limber. It was the distinctive feeling she always got when she roughed it or went camping with her grandfather and brothers. Lifting her head, she realized the left side of her uniform was no longer crisp and blue, but uncomfortably darkened with congealed mud. No doubt there were clods of earth adhered to her face and hair. At least Trip would not likely notice – he'd probably be too busy being relieved at having gotten her back. And Reed was known for ending his shifts with a respectable amount of grime whenever he got wrapped up in various projects. In fact, it was likely the only one who would care to notice her state of dishevelment would be the subcommander.

"Sato to Enterprise, ready for transport." Seeing the shuttlepod leave without her the afternoon before had felt like a sick joke. Whatever composure she had regained through sleep started to feel very tenuous. This had to be a joke. And they had taken it too far. She fought to control herself as she dug out her videologger. She had the camera set in its default position to record the chamber carvings as she made observations. Now, she flipped the camera to face her.

"I'm still here," Hoshi reported superfluously. "There's probably a logical explanation behind all of this, but if this turns out to be a joke I will be filing complaints of misconduct as well as submitting reports of violations of protocol with Starfleet upon my return. I will continue updating this log both for the sake of posterity and for the school of knowledge of this planet." The question remained: what now?

"Regardless of the reason for my delayed return to Enterprise, I will remain in the area. All of the ration packs, emergency blankets and survival gear was in Shuttlepod One, which, as I noted earlier, left yesterday afternoon. Without me." Those assholes were going to pay. She'd think of something. She could replace everyone's toothpaste with glue, or fix the UT to translate everything people said into a cockney-fashioned pig latin. Her fingers shook as she hit the record button again. When had she last eaten?

"I need to procure water and food, while remaining close by for rescue. This planet has no known name beyond its designation. We perceived no biosigns of any sentient beings, nor of any fauna of significant size. There is quite a bit of vegetation both on the planet and in this region of the continent. I have no particular training in botany or biology as a whole, nor do I have survival training beyond Starfleet standards." This planet's days consisted of 28 hours, 14 minutes and a few seconds extra change. Despite the extra time in a rotation, Hoshi realized the day would get away from her if she did not act. She was lucky she happened to grab a canteen from the shuttlepod while she and Trip wandered the temple's chambers. While she had some water left, she needed to find a reliable source.

As the trio watched the blue blur find and test water, Will watched Thomas. His observational skills tended, he thought, towards the discrete, but he kept forgetting that Thomas was a keen observer, himself. Literally.

"Hey, don't look at me," the dublicate raised his hands, "I never had to go and reinvent the wheel." That much was true, Will knew, since Nervala IV was an inhospitable planet, but Thomas had been trapped in a state-of-the-art research base. It had probably started to get hairy towards the end as equipment started to break down, but finding potable water wasn't the issue. "If I had to be marooned anywhere, a self-sufficient research base was the place to be."

"Still, it couldn't have been easy," Will tried. What was he even trying to say?

"No, but at least I knew the stuff I had available was edible." Thomas nodded at the blue blur, which was logging various plants she had uprooted from the surrounding wooded area. She methodically scanned each one and logged the readouts of their properties, trying to make a best guess for edibility and nutritional value.

There was nothing left but the deed itself. Still, she hesitated. She had no phase pistol and there was not a single tool in the field kit with which to start a fire. She technically had a small lens or two in the cameras, but destroying Starfleet technology felt premature. Rubbing up a friction fire was not something Hoshi looked forward to doing. For one thing, it had been over a year since she had even attempted such a thing. Starting fires in a confined, oxygenated can hurtling through space was never a good idea. Mainly, it meant accepting that she would likely be there for at least another day or so, since that seemed to be the amount of time it took Trip to rebuild the transporter a while back.

She had been lucky that the scanner had not picked any suspicious substances in the water from the stream, and was luckier the stream was so close. If she had taken the more disciplined route, she would have boiled the water, just in case. As it was, she had drunk it and was still fine. But at least heating some of the tubers she'd found was necessary. On the one hand, they might be perfectly edible raw. But potatoes and other edible tubers on Earth could cause problems eaten raw, and trying new foods seemed safer cooked to some degree. She would need to make a fire.

It was two hours later, trembling from hunger, exhaustion and frustration, that it even occurred to Hoshi that the parameters for combustion might be different for the kindling she'd found on this planet. What if it required a higher threshold of heat? Not that she could do anything about it. But, no – her mind was playing tricks. She was doing the right thing, and she was doing it the right way. Starfleet survival training was clear on the subject. This was how you made a fire on an M class planet, regardless of which planet you were on.

Her fingers felt raw by the time she finally managed to spark a choking flame.

If Will's face was anything to go by, he was feeling similar feelings to Thomas. Thomas was appalled, himself. Just as the ensign had wheedled out a promising start to a fire, the patter of rain that had grown decided to splatter down reinforcements. It was clear the ensign had not particularly noticed the gathering clouds, nor the increasing humidity and light drizzle. She was already sticky with exertion, so the plop of water that doused the fruit of her labor was not something she had seen coming. Again, the look of blank disbelief took hold for a moment while she processed what had happened.

"She somehow seems different from the documentaries." Will commented. "I never expected her to be the angry type." It was true, Thomas admitted. The documentaries they had watched, with interviews, old footage and triumphant music had shown the members of the NX-01 Enterprise as invariably calm, controlled and competent. From what he could remember, Sato had been rather quiet, though clearly just as passionate for her field and her work as the others.

If the holodeck's recreation was to be believed, though, Sato's river ran much deeper than a bookish scholar with a mild taste for adventure. They watched as she, shaking, retreated from her ruined work before beating her feelings on a rotting tree that stood nearby.

"I thought she'd cry, or maybe stay in denial longer." Will had spent the last several years exploring. He would be an even better judge of character than Thomas by now. But for all of his extra experience, Will had no idea.

"She's calmer than I was," Thomas shrugged. "My tantrums were far more destructive." He tried to ignore Will's searching look.

Deanna Troi felt triumphant. She knew they would mind, but she also knew neither of them could deny her from doing her job. The captain had agreed with her that the two of them needed this and had ordered them to this holodeck as their temporary duty station until Counselor Troi determined she was ready to grant them regular duty. Since neither Riker was the type to work on their feelings by talking about their own experiences, Sato's logs were a trove. Will would likely attempt mutiny when they found out, but there was nothing they could do about it, now.

She was lucky she had not broken any of the bones in her hand from punching the tree. Her brother would have made a move like that when they were younger. It was a move for which she would have kicked his ass. As it was, she was even luckier it had grown rotten. Her fist had gone right through the bark and plunged into the spongy, decaying wood. In the meantime, the rain, while not heavy, stayed steady. She needed to be better. Her grandfather had always lectured them about the worth of hard work and study, and of the pay off from anticipation. Hoshi took a moment to press her knuckles into the corners of her eyes. If she kept going, she would be fully admitting the direness of her situation.

Crouched into a squat and planted on her heels, she glanced up from her second attempt at making a fire. The stone structure was solid and impervious to flame, so she did not need to pay particular worry towards a fire hazard. It was walled in, roofed and the windows and entry left it well ventilated. It was also a historic site. There was a high probability that Hoshi was desecrating a place of religious and or cultural depth. Nonetheless, it was a better shelter than she could have built for herself.

Once she was sure it had caught, Hoshi proudly logged it, not caring how smudged and giddy she would appear on screen. Tubers baked by the flames and eaten, Hoshi didn't know what else to do.

"I'm on a planet where my most perceivable threat is storms, for which I have a tested and sturdy shelter," she recorded. "I have found both water and some edible food. I say edible, because it has not yet killed me. If I'm still good by tomorrow, I guess it's safe, although hopefully Trip will have fixed the transporter by then, or whatever was wrong with the shuttlepod, or Travis will take the other one, or something.

"My plans right now are to collect more food tomorrow morning, and wood for the second half of the day. Once I'm stocked up, I should be good to go for whenever Enterprise comes back for me."

* * *

If it were not for the field kit with its study equipment, she would have lost track of the days. As it was, it had been a month. An entire 32 days, and still no sign of Enterprise. The days on this nameless M Class planet were longer, so it was probably closer to 37 or so days for Earth, in case Hoshi bothered to check the math again.

The first day and night had been spent sheltering from the storm. The second day waiting. The third morning was spent throwing tantrums. That afternoon was when she'd finally worked on survival. Her fourth day, she had collected tubers and wood. Though she had spent her childhood accustomed to sleeping on harder surfaces, the stone floor of the temple sapped her warmth and left her aching. She gave in on the eighth day and grudgingly sat on a grassy hillside, trying to figure out how to weave together a functional sleeping mat. Though she did not have to worry about large fauna preying on her, she spent more time than she cared to swatting at this planet's version of mosquitoes. Her mother had always said mosquitoes loved her more than anyone else in the family because her blood was sweet. It seemed they found her just as tasty here as they did on Earth. It was just her luck to be marooned right on time for mosquito season.

She finished her crooked, lumpy sleeping mat on the ninth day and spent the next three days trying to find a way to repel the insects. Eventually, she found a plant with a sharp garlic-like scent. Eating it seemed to do her no great harm, and when she applied it topically, seemed to repel them even more than it repelled her. She weaved grass curtains for the door of the temple and the windows. She built and smothered the fire to smoke out the rest of the insects.

Hoshi did not care how sweaty and sooty and smelly she was when she logged her success. She had a domain that was free from the mosquitoes that had tormented her for days.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I tried to do a bit of character study in this chapter. Let me know if you think it works or not. This chapter is rather longer than the first, but wraps up the story.

Every etching in the temple was photographed and she had added notations and contextual descriptions and guesses as to their meaning and value. She had logged and photographed the flora, starting with all of the edible foods she had found, and even made note of their reproduction, given that it was looking like she'd need a reliable food source indefinitely.

Hoshi had come to terms with her new life. She was not sure when it had happened. She would have expected to have some kind of great epiphany where she'd find herself in the world of Epictetus, full of grace in the face of hardship. Instead of a momentous episode, she was seated on the terrace-like roof of the temple, sketching the mountain range where the temple nestled. The valley lay below, spread out and braided with streams.

The bridge meeting over this planet seemed a distant memory, now. She could not remember whether this planet had a substantial amount of axial tilt, or whether its magnetic field was particularly weak or strong. Given the robust ecosystem in this area, it was probably nominal. If there was a winter or a spring, was she in it now, or was she wholly unprepared for some catastrophic season? Did this planet experience a monsoon season and if it did, would it affect her here? She could not remember how close this temple was to its nearest ocean; could not remember the content of Subcommander T'Pol's briefing, interspersed with Trip's jokes and mounting excitement.

Perhaps Enterprise had experienced some cataclysmic malfunction and been destroyed. Perhaps it crashed somewhere on the other side of this continent, or on the other side of this planet, perhaps in one of its oceans. This thought had first surfaced for her sometime between her second and third day planetside. The theory had percolated for another day before she logged it. If Enterprise had indeed been destroyed, it was her responsibility to leave some record of Enterprise's course before vanishing. While it frightened and depressed her, there was nothing else could do about it, so she kept living.

Hoshi had logged the temple, edible plants, plants that had made her sick, the soil types, scans of the water. She had logged photographs of the rocky outcrops she'd found nearby, showing layers of volcanic activity atop fossils of primitive plants and rough sediments. She had tracked the movements of the planet's three moons. The larger of the three tracked its way across the northern half of the sky during the day, rising from behind the eastern end of the mountain range and setting behind the western mountains. It served as a reliable way to tell time, should Hoshi's equipment fail and run out of battery. When it failed and died.

The other two moons chased each other across the sky at all hours. Some days, they accompanied the first moon. Others, they waited for night. They orbited farther than their more reliable cousin. T'Pol had mentioned their pattern was much more stable than their erratic flight paths would suggest, due to the planet's axial tilt and the second and third moon's tandem rotation around the planet. They held domain over the southern half of the sky, casting an ethereal quality of light over everything during some nights and dogging the first moon during some days.

Now, it was day and all three moons were out. The first sat to the west of her and the sun pitched rays from its eastern perch over the western mountains. They would both set soon, and the second moon would have its chance to wax. The skyscape was currently bathed in warm oranges and reds which would deepen to a sleepy purple. The third moon was partly eclipsed by the planet and partly shaded by the second moon. Whatever antics were at play either in Starfleet or celestially, Hoshi didn't know. Kicking back to lean on the slope of the mountain and adding to her sketches, she noted that she truly felt at peace.

"I don't remember ever hearing about her being left behind, let alone duplicated." Will turned to the counselor as Hoshi Sato spent her one hundred and fiftieth day moving rocks around in an attempt to shore up some of the crumbling outer walls of the temple. "Surely it would have been mentioned more?"

"I don't ever recall a warning about duplication as a possible side effect from transporters, especially if there's interference from a storm." Thomas added. "Why wasn't it mentioned during our transporter seminars?"

"The technology was relatively new at the time, and they were the testing crew," Troi's tone sounded suspiciously reasonable. "Though intentions by most involved were pure and for the benefit of science and society, politics were a factor. Besides, Sato was somewhat of an introvert, despite her attempts to appear otherwise. Once she returned to civilization, both duplicates preferred to keep things on the more private side."

"So they did meet," Will surmised. "Wonder how that played out."

"You're welcome to see," Deanna noted before commanding the holodeck to reconfigure itself to the Enterprise's ancestor ship bridge.

Every elementary school student had seen pictures of the famed Captain Archer in profile on this bridge. It was less romantic than the bridge of a seafaring ship, and less comfortable than the bridge of her descendant Enterprise. It felt rustically utilitarian. There, Captain Jonathan Archer oversaw his crew. The genius of Commander Tucker was still hailed today, and there he was, tuning the console for Subcommander T'Pol, the pioneering Vulcan who dared venture into an erratic working environment. Hoshi Sato, looking pristine compared to her counterpart, sat at her console. It suddenly occurred to William just how threadbare and faded the other Sato's uniform had become.

"Sir, you've received a transmission from the Vulcan starship Haadok." There was a pause as she double-checked her console. "It's marked as related to the packet the Savel sent three days ago."

Archer blinked. That was right. The Savel had sent a data packet, marked non-urgent two days ago. That had been the day when that mess transpired with the missing researchers, the Tarkalean freighter signaling distress and their altered crew wrecking havoc on Enterprise.

'You will be assimilated. Resistance is futile.' They had said. He had destroyed the transporter. Phlox had repeatedly heard Earth's coordinates while infected with whatever those nanoprobes had done to him. Regardless of T'Pol's calculation that the transmission of Earth's coordinates would not reach its destination for a couple of centuries, Archer worried. He had spent the past day worrying, heedless of the backlog of work that needed doing.

Non-urgent was fine for Archer. After whatever had happened two days before, he was itching to do something rudimentary. Vulcans, while not rudimentary, could be expected to provide structure and predictability in whatever they endeavored to do.

"I'll be in my ready room," Archer nodded to T'Pol, handing command to her.

Hoshi Sato barely glanced up from the matrix she was working on when the captain called the subcommander into his ready room. She briefly looked up when the lieutenant was called into the captain's ready room. Something might be up, she reasoned, but if were important, she and the rest of the senior staff would hear of it soon enough.

"Captain," T'Pol switched tracks, and Jonathan had a sinking feeling he knew where her suggestion would lead. "I believe it would be logical to ask Ensign Sato whether she can add to our knowledge of this planet. She may remember details that are not included in the planet's overview."

"The Savel and the Haadok both indicate that it wasn't an urgent matter. Maybe it would make more sense for Trip to take a look at our system logs from that day. Just to eliminate the possibility you suggest." There was an awkward pause, which Reed waited out imperturbably and T'Pol calculated a response.

"The lieutenant has already checked the logs," she did not bother gesturing to the data pad in Reed's hands, "and was already the logical person to ask." It was true. He had been the one to beam up the away team amid a storm. Jonathan had called him in for this reason, and because Trip was down in engineering. To call him up and let him know before anyone bothered letting the Ensign know would likely add insult to injury.

"The Radak has been orbiting the planet ever since their discovery." T'Pol's cool manner let slip she was taking comfort in what few facts she did have. "They have held their schedule at bay out of respect for Enterprise's orders to rescue other ships in distress, but it is time they continue on their manifest. No other Earth vessel has the capability of reaching it in a reasonable time. At warp three point five, Enterprise can reach the planet in two days." Probably less, if Travis knew what the mission would entail.

"Captain," Reed piped up. "If the Radak's reports are true, that they intended on following up on the initial data gathered by Ensign Sato from the temple, and they found the temple inhabited, it would make sense for Enterprise to make haste in solving any confusion." Of course Reed would make haste. The man was probably working overtime wondering how he could have foreseen this eventuality and prevented it. "And," he added almost hesitantly, "if there is any question about data collection for the temple, professional courtesy might favor bringing the Ensign in on this before long."

Jonathan rubbed his eyes in a vain hope he could rub out the problem. Talk about insult to injury. Going to Trip before Hoshi at this stage would be just that, essentially making her the last to know anything about an impossible marooned twin left alone for the better part of seven months. And vulcans said humans were fanciful. He'd never let them live this down if it turned out to be some lost equipment reported incorrectly as a lost crewmen.

Speaking of insult to injury, Jon was willing to bet the vulcans didn't care one whit about an abandoned temple with some wall doodles. He was just short of being sure that the vulcans were looking for deviations between Enterprise's scientific reports and their own findings to prove human ineptitude in space. He was wasting time. He needed to order a change in course and let Hoshi in on whatever this was. Perhaps it would become a funny story by next week.

Travis scented something afoot. Aboard Enterprise, people tended to think of Hoshi as the center through which information flowed. They would somehow correlate this with gossip and assume she knew all the gossip, which was only partly true. Accustomed to living in close quarters and figuring out how to get along with everybody, Travis was the true master of sensing when drama might be lurking. Data packets were common enough, but two within a week was somewhat less common these days. The subcommander was in and out of the captain's ready room often enough, but then the lieutenant had been called in.

Travis came to a full stop and flipped through various thrusters to reorient the ship's heading. He eased Enterprise into impulse before jumping to warp 3.5. Something was up. They were heading towards a section of space they'd already explored and the subcommander seemed to be rifling through her console as if cramming for a test. Travis observed the lieutenant in the reflection of one of his panels. He was postured as formally as ever, but glanced at the ready room more than he strictly needed to. And Hoshi was in the captain's ready room, now.

At home on the Horizon, such patterns of behavior usually indicated news of family emergencies or loved ones passing. His parents could be tough to read at times, but their adherence to proper protocol for informing loved ones of news before allowing it into public knowledge gave Travis a knack for reading the terrain as well as any linguist. He watched Malcolm casually glance towards the ready room. Travis nosed Enterprise a notch faster.

Hoshi could see the captain was expecting something from her. Belatedly, she realized he expected some thing from her. A thing. An emotion, maybe. At least a reaction. He had gone through, in chronological order, the series of events that had led to the vulcan starship Radak's interest in abandoned temples in that region of space. The vulcan discovery that the temple labeled as abandoned on a planet devoid of any notable fauna was actually inhabited by something humanoid was understandably perplexing. The Radak had no training in dealing with Earth or humans, nor did they have the Enterprise's manifest. It was vulcan-like and logical to send a data packet to the Savel to request a more detailed clarification from Enterprise.

It also made sense that the Radak would observe the temple's inhabitants from orbit while they awaited a response. The planet's documentation showed only two sentient visitors in the past several years, a Commander Charles Tucker III and Ensign Hoshi Sato. Scans showed a female human occupant, with faint residual signatures matching those of a Starfleet communicator and other equipment that had died or been turned off. The logical assumption was that Enterprise had opted to leave their crewmember on the planet for a longer period of study, although such an act would be highly irregular.

"Are, you … alright?" Archer was speaking slowly, dragging out his words. Whether it was because he was uncertain of her feelings or because he thought she was confused, Hoshi didn't know. "Does – does everything make sense?" How could it?

"Yes, I think so," she answered. That there was somehow a human female with a Starfleet communicator in the very structure she and the commander had explored was a puzzle, to be sure. Something nagged her, but she could not place it. "Will that be all, captain?"

Travis looked puzzled at her upon her return to her station. T'Pol observed her more closely than usual. Malcolm rigidly avoided looking at her or doing anything out of the ordinary. The captain passed the command to T'Pol and took the lift down, presumably to break the news to Trip. Trip came up several minutes later and gave an exaggerated tune up for one of the consoles he had plainly fixed last month in an attempt to chat her up. It seemed everyone wanted a reaction from her. Thus far, she didn't have one.

Hoshi's hearing had always been good. Growing up, many assumed her interest in languages had been born from her sensitive hearing. Truly, her hearing had never been her source of skill for language, though it was certainly helpful. It was all about patterns. It was math. It was about cracking the code and picking out the important bits, anticipating and predicting outcomes. Her grandfather had always lectured them about the worth of anticipation. It seemed that her language-processing center slowed down over the two days it took to reach the planet, designated TCvP-02. How the vulcans had decided to name the planets in that region, only T'Pol could guess.

As Enterprise drew nearer, she could hear just fine. She just did not process it. She overheard Trip suggest that he did not feel up to accompanying the away team on the planet, in case he'd somehow left a fellow crewmember and a junior officer behind. She overheard the captain saying that that was nonsense and that Hoshi would be glad to see him and relieved he was alright. She overheard Malcolm request to accompany the away team. He didn't voice that it was to not to be the one in charge of operating the transporting device. She overheard some of the junior crew tossing theories as to where they were headed, where they would end up, and why they were heading over old ground. She overheard Archer explain the true purpose of the mission; to confirm the Radak's discovery of a human and retrieve a marooned crewmember. Perhaps she had not overheard it; that last bit was during the mission briefing, given to only the senior staff before they arrived in orbit.

"You've been rather quiet these last few days, hmm?" Hoshi overheard Phlox ask his typical statement.

"Sorry?"

"Ensign, are you feeling equipped for this mission?" The doctor became frank. "While I believe it could be beneficial for the Hoshi Sato on the planet to be given as much information as possible as soon as possible, there is time to reformulate this plan if it were to cause detriment to you."

"What's the difference?" Hoshi half-joked.

"Seven months of drastically different experiences." He shot back. "And," he added more gently, "the sudden expectation of being identical in every facet upon meeting a stranger." She didn't have a response to that. They turned the corner to find crewmembers of the Radak departing through the airlock. Archer was pinching the bridge of his nose while T'Pol looked on.

"What did they mean they haven't confirmed that it's her? As per their request, we sent them her picture on file."

"They have not met her face to face, nor have they ventured onto the planet to do so. Their instruments can capture images, but they have not been adequate in confirming identity." T'Pol delicately avoided mentioning that the Radak was being kept in the dark. As far as the vulcans knew, there was no such hypothesis of transportational duplication.

"So she is unaware that she's being rescued?" Doctor Phlox interjected. "She has not been prepared or forewarned that Enterprise is on her way?"

"The crew of the Radak have no training for contact with humans. Based on the limited records on human abandonment and isolation, they concluded that such a contact posed risks of which they could not predict." There was a pause. "Humans are social by nature and are already difficult for vulcans to contemplate, given human capacity for rapid variations in emotion. After an extended period under abnormal conditions, their ship's doctor could not confidently give a prediction to how such an exchange would go. The Radak determined the best course of action was to wait for Enterprise." As far as infuriatingly pedantic spiels, Hoshi never thought she'd see Malcolm give rise.

"Sir, given her lack of preparation, I suggest we take a shuttlepod down, rather than the transporter." The shuttlepod had been the preferred method of extraction, anyway. He was probably just saying this to get a move on.

"Agreed."

It was her, alright. Under the grime, tanned skin, tattered uniform and handwoven grass hat to shield her eyes, was Hoshi Sato. They stood before her, nervous, cautious and expectant. They strained to make out the waif who seemed to be relacing her boot with corded bark fibers.

One of the faces staring back at her, with that shiny hair, fresh uniform and impeccable boot laces was specious. Perhaps she had truly lost it. She did not know when it had happened. She had always thought madness was something that would slowly set in, where one might have a chance of figuring out what was happening. It seemed now that insanity was a switch one could flip. Blinking, she found the senior crew still there.

"Ensign," Phlox tried again. Evidently, she had not responded to her name. "I realize this is a shock, but we thought it best to come right out with it." Shifting her gaze to the shortest of specters, she reconfirmed it had her face.

T'Pol had opted to hang back compared to the others. It was partly to shield herself from the possible flood of emotions. It was partly to observe the ensign's handiwork. Of all of the crew, she would not have thought Sato, the youngest and least excited to ford into space, to be as adept as she clearly had been.

Neat rows of cultivated plants flourished, drying foodstuffs were strung up on makeshift frames. Woven grass protected the entrance to the temple, which had been cleared of its creeping vines, save for where they helped hold the rocks together. A depression some distance off showed where she had dug out extra stones to use and harvested clay to shape into pottery. The pots that sat near the temple entrance had never been fired at kiln temperatures, nor would they qualify as beautiful. They functioned. T'Pol would be interested whether they held tools and food, or whether they were sufficient enough to hold water.

"If you're real, why did you leave?" The grimy woman's voice was rusty from disuse. "I saw the shuttlepod leave."

"We left," Phlox said carefully, "because we thought we had completed the mission and collected everything and everyone we had brought."

"I hailed the ship when I saw the shuttlepod leave." There was no particular blame that T'Pol could detect, nor any discernible note. A simply stated fact. Before Phlox could respond, she had finished lacing her boot and turned. She did not give indication they were unwelcome and there was not much to do but to follow. Once they had climbed to the temple's entrance area, they saw where Hoshi had dug and lined a fire pit with stones, built a mud trough lined with clay for water and fashioned a leaky gutter from the temple roof to funnel rainwater to the trough. She dipped a dried gourd into the water and rinsed her hands of dirt, studying them again.

"Ensign, you have been productive."

As far as Trip was concerned, T'Pol didn't give herself enough credit in working with humans. For all that diddly squat she spouted about finding humans to be confounding, she sure knew how get this one to open up. If Trip could call this awkward, wordless tour opening up. Trip had to watch his head under some of the doorways, and Archer had to stoop to clear his head, but they all filed in to soak in the grandeur.

Thus far, Archer had done a good job in keeping quiet. Ever since they had received word that Charles had died, their unshakable friendship had frayed. Both were more than capable of maintaining a functional working relationship, but Trip was no longer certain whether they were capable of getting back to where they had been. They had a lot of recent practice at awkward and sometimes angry silences. It seemed their practiced silence was being put to good use now.

The inner entrance had a fire pit, some grass mats and neatly organized food and makeshift tools. The tools were mostly rocks with different edges, facets and other useful features. Malcolm had knelt by a row of what were presumably her favorite tools, and examined some kind of herb she had partially ground between a mortar and pestle. Trip saw the doctor try to take a discreet reading on his medical scanner when the waif's back was turned.

"The day you and Commander Tucker were here, researching these carvings," T'Pol piped up again, "a diamagnetic storm came. Readings indicated that severe physiological damage would result from exposure, even if sheltered in a structure such as this. How did you survive?" Again, silence as she turned and led the way through different rooms before stooping over yet another grass mat. Trip supposed a good marooning evidently left a lot of time to be productive. The grass mat lifted to reveal a trap door. Sliding the stone slab into the adjoining wall, they all shuffled down into the darkness.

If Trip's memory served, Hoshi had not gone wriggling through the ship's crawl spaces for fun, yet they found she had outfitted the basement with a supply of water, dried food and grass mats and blankets. Her field kit was packed and kept painstakingly clean despite the dusty clamminess of the room. Again, T'Pol was the only member of the away team to find the courage to speak.

"Most impressive."

Tour complete, Archer decided to break his silence and work towards the subject of leaving.

"Hoshi, I can't imagine how strange this must be for you. You did everything right." He faltered and let the sentiment drop.

Deanna was gratified to see both Rikers glued to the events in the temple basement. She hoped they would note that both Satos were doing their best to avoid the other. For one, it was an effort at feigning sanity while for the other, it was an effort at maintaining it. If she could get the Rikers to learn from these hard-won experiences, they just might become the strongest of allies.

"You kept your equipment in impeccable condition," T'Pol remarked. Travis was ready to burst from the tense atmosphere with so little communication. "This, and any surviving data, will serve to add weight to your commendable actions." A nodded response. A cocked eyebrow returned. "Is there much preserved data?" Another nod.

The subcommander took the liberty of opening the field kit and examining its contents. The batteries had all gone dead, but the field book was well-used and the field pencil had been written down to the nub, amounting to no more than a half inch in length. Where the other equipment had been kept clean, there was no saving the book from its hardships. Originally a proud yellow in color, it was now smudged. Wavy, browned paper edges spoke to more excitement than a book in this century normally got.

Travis looked over the vulcan's shoulder as she flipped through the paper. Starfleet had debated whether to include paper as a part of the standard field kit, but it had clearly been worth it. Hoshi was inept at drawing, and any sketches and diagrams that included her for scale were simple stick figures. But the detailed mountain range, valley below, stratigraphic sketches with notes, movements of multiple moons and pressed flowers culminated in a lumped feeling in Travis's throat.

"It's beautiful."

Medicine had always been Phlox's calling, and had always provided him with perplexing contradictions. He was eternally fascinated with the nature of injuries, virology, abnormal psychology, parasitism and the like. And he was eternally wounded each time his patients ailed under such conditions. Phlox was certainly not the morbid type, but he was also far from the simple cheer he strove to give to his patients.

Phlox studied the readout from his medical scanner. He would need to get her to submit to a more thorough check to truly get a picture of her state of health, but the height was right, the face was definitely hers and the physical mannerisms were spot on. When stressed, she tended to fiddle with her her left hand while her right remained as calm as ever. When standing, her neutral stance naturally gravitated towards her center, knees slightly bent and hands clasped either in front or behind. If their state of dress weren't so drastically different, and if the marooned Hoshi Sato weren't so deeply tanned, Phlox would have trouble telling the difference based on manner alone. Both were exhibiting the preference to look anywhere but at their double. Perhaps it was cultural?

Phlox had hastily studied as much of Hoshi's background as possible and found he knew little of the individual herself. Undeterred, he checked through historical accounts of her demographic background. All he found were some vague references to superstitions about fearing twins in a much older Japan among several other regions on Earth. But, she and her family were far removed from feudal Japan, and Hoshi herself had spent a great deal of her childhood being educated around the world. No, he was certain it would have more to do with her – their – individual personality traits more than anything else. It was only upon trying to find anything about her background that he realized yet another quirk of human bonding.

Prior to encountering his first humans, he had been led to believe the species derived from a pack-like, tribal structure. Perhaps less prone to fits of mood than Andorians and less combative than Klingons, but nonetheless as alien as could be from a measured vulcan perspective. Their widely read social studies were published in the most reputable circles of vulcan academia. As a result, the associated communities in the galaxy were under the impression that humans, with minimal variation, were inherently and openly emotional, tight-knit and bonded quickly.

Phlox's own initial contacts with them did nothing to dissuade this notion. Their doctors were professional, friendly and courteous. Their politicians were cautious, polite – if bombastic, and determined. They were uniformly and unabashedly curious. His first human hosts, with whom he had stayed, had been insatiable for knowledge of all he had seen in the galaxy. But then he had spent time with them, and he realized how very superficial those earlier studies were; how little they had scratched the surface.

Granted, his current sample size was limited to the crew of Enterprise and the occasional visiting human dignitary or visits down to Earth or Mars during refueling runs. He was aware that the most driven of any species could often display the most neuroticisms.

Archer, while polite and friendly, held deeper feelings of injury due to political maneuverings with vulcans. He had inherited additional baggage from his towering father, which likely didn't help matters. Travis Mayweather, despite growing up far from Earth, was the very embodiment of curiosity, adventure, friendship and goodwill. But it had taken the better part of a year before anyone guessed at his complicated familial relationships. Even at that, Phlox had only learned of it after a death in his family, a short leave and a week to let these events simmer.

Malcolm Reed was the consummate mystery who occasionally played at acting the cheerful ladies man. Save for Crewman Cutler, Phlox had spent more time interacting with that particular human than any other member of the crew, yet he felt he knew Reed the least. It was not a stretch to see that much of his reticence was cultural. Phlox had discovered that, despite what the vulcan academic community had to say, multiple demographics, cultures and systems of belief on Earth displayed characteristics quite similar to those valued on Vulcan. From the proper English, the refined French, the reserved German stereotypes, it seemed several cultures in Europe alone would have gotten along swimmingly.

Ancient Marcus Aurelius and his stoic journal would have been welcome at any place of vulcan education. The measured way of Confucian life, the poetic beauty of the way of the Tao, and the way in which cultures in Eastern Asia had embraced the values of stoic acceptance and perseverance could have buttered the bread of anyone who valued vulcan empiricism and honor.

Sato was an interesting conundrum for Phlox. She could carry on stimulating conversations in any given language for hours, and had somehow managed to gloss over anything truly personal. Oh, she had mentioned her grandmother's famed recipes. She sprinkled in enough tidbits about her foibles in school and gave soundbite stories about her upbringing to give the initial impression of openness and progress towards intimacy. But it was only through her medical file that he found evidence of at least one brother, to whom she had donated blood upon an unexpected injury. Trawling through more Starfleet records, he found she had another brother, who worked in research and development for Starfleet. Ultimately, she had succeeded in hiding the state of her relationships, whether she was engaged in any that were romantic, or whether she had ever done.

It seemed only Charles Tucker III, who coaxed all who knew him to call him Trip, matched the Vulcan analysis of the quintessential human. He was open, he was big, he was loud. He shared stories of his childhood that illuminated what his life was like and how he had grown up. He showed his frustrations openly, he announced his anger and his smiles could almost rival Phlox's own. At this moment, the engineer's attempts to covertly look from one Sato to the other were trivial at best. It was clear to everyone but the commander himself that he was obvious in comparing the doubles.

"This room is quite chilly. Perhaps we should take advantage of our daylight, hmm?" The cheer in his voice felt fake. The marooned Sato led the way up the uneven steps. T'Pol followed with the field kit.

The oppressive silence lifted when everyone had climbed out through the trap door. Travis escaped outside to check that the shuttlepod was good to launch. Archer watched as Malcolm wandered to the entrance area and open his communicator to check in with Enterprise. While he exchanged updates with his bridge replacement, Ensign Mulligan, he stooped to examine some project their lost crewmember had started.

Trip passed by him to step outside and explore whatever interested him earlier. Or he was distancing himself from Jonathan. Trip still wouldn't carry on a casual conversation with him, and Jonathan again wondered whether Trip would go to Malcolm. In the wake of Charles's suicide, they had yet to regroup their friendship. If Trip thought his 'covert' glances of anger and disappointment at him had gone unnoticed, Trip had a thing or two to learn.

T'Pol stepped out next, and Jon suspected she was eager to stow the away kit with the shuttlepod for safekeeping. Hoshi – the one in the clean uniform, wandered out after her. He would need to consult Phlox on this one.

It seemed both of them had gone mute and were determined to veer from each other like opposing magnets. The both of them would need to start making some decisions and doing some groundwork, not the least of which included helping him inform Starfleet of whatever had happened. They would likely think he had gone round the bend if he tried explaining this without the both of them standing there with him.

He stooped where Malcolm had done and saw that she had created a cohort of what looked like dolls. Rolling pebbles into drying leaves for heads and threading twigs for arms, Jon realized he was looking at the only real form of decoration he had seen so far. There was no entertainment, no books, no excess of pen and paper to doodle. In the stretches of boredom, Jon realized Enterprise's youngest had made do with what she had on hand. They resembled corndolls; they were placed on the window sill, next to the fire and in nooks in the stone walls.

"Ensign, if you want to bring anything, just let us know, and we'll take it with us." What would she 'pack,' if anything? Hoshi had never been the type to attach much sentiment with material possessions, but then again Jon had no experience with making friends with makeshift corndolls. She did not respond for a few seconds and for a heartstopping moment it occurred to Jon that she might not want to go with them. She had needed to survive here because all evidence pointed to some cruel abandonment. She had survived here for over seven months alone, had a system in place and had potentially made new … friends.

"I'll be ready tomorrow." What she could possible need another day here for, Jon did not know.

"Hoshi," Phlox jumped in. "I would like to give you at least a basic check up, hmm? See whether you have anything that needs attention."

"No need." With that, she exited the temple and left Jon and the bemused doctor to introduce themselves to the corndolls.

Hoshi picked her way along a path up and around the temple. She took comfort in the solitude. Even now, with everyone ready to head up to Enterprise, it was difficult to comprehend two of her. Would it be like suddenly having a twin? But, twins, while famously raised close and sharing everything, from food to experiences to deepest secrets, were still individuals. If the transporter had truly duplicated her molecule for molecule, down to the last hair follicle, then there was now another who shared her DNA, her biometrics, epigenetics and hidden thoughts. She stopped short.

If their starting points were identical and only divergent from that day over seven months ago, where did that leave them? They could hardly sit at the same console, listening to the same transmissions and live a conjoined life. They would likely take different paths, whatever they might be. If that were the case they would inevitably grow into different people. What if the other Hoshi decided to divulge their secrets; some humiliating story, like the time she was nearly booted from Starfleet for breaking a superior's arm? Now they were different people, they had no true hold over the other. Would making a promise to the other mean the same thing as making a promise to herself? What would it mean to break such a promise? Would it be an ultimate self-betrayal or would it amount to the equivalent of sleeping through a casual workout?

Looking down, she found her feet had brought her to the terrace-like roof of the temple. Beyond the burgeoning rows of plants, down behind the copse of trees that shaded the stream, she spied the shuttlepod. Behind that copse was the nearest flat place to land, save for the temple roof. A quiet sigh to her right alerted her to the presence of another Hoshi Sato. It seemed they were still similar enough to seek out the same kinds of places.

"Phlox is looking for you," She offered lamely.

"I know. I heard. He's looking for you, too, actually." She sat down next to the other and the two of them watched the view. T'Pol and Travis were comparing Hoshi's field book with their own measurements of the stream water. Trip was fiddling in the ditch used to quarry rocks and clay. Malcolm was examining the frame where pieces of fruit and tubers were strung to dry. Below them, the captain and Phlox emerged and started a slow descent towards the shuttlepod.

"Do you think they'll like each other?" The voices floated up.

"What's not to like? Besides, though Subcommander T'Pol hypothesized they would indeed be duplicates of each other, down to the last synapse, we cannot exclude the possibility that they may share different memories, or configurations thereof. I will need to do a full medical examination on both and compare it to records from before seven months ago in order to be sure. Regardless of any findings, that the transporter has produced two visually identical organisms from one original leaves us many questions."

"And a few consequences."

"Quite so." As the voices muffled with distance, the other Hoshi looked at her.

"Where were you born?" A correct answer. Her turn.

"What was your birth weight?" Another correct answer.

"What was your worst grade?" And so on. When did she first study Vulcan, Hebrew, Dineh, Rigelian. The quizzing kept up, flowing from English to Japanese and into every language she could think to remember. One tried to trip up the other by asking a riddle in a bastardized version of Klingon pig latin. The other responded correctly, but in a fictional language authored by a long-dead linguist. They established they had the same memories, the same guesses at the other's madeup passphrases.

"Well, it seems I shouldn't secure anything with passwords of my own." One concluded.

"You should make better passwords." Came the predictable response.

"Computer, pause program." Thomas didn't know where the program was going, nor did he particularly care at the moment. For all he knew, Hoshi Sato was never duplicated and Deanna was using some kind of therapy program to encourage some kind of closure. If closure could be had. Closure was for people who had come full circle, not for people who had to carve out a niche of an identity. "Deanna, what is this about?" Turning towards where she had been, he discovered it was just him and himself.

"She snuck out when Sato was taking her walk." William filled in. Thomas tried not to pay attention to the attention paid him. "Want to talk about it?"

"No." Thomas almost laughed at the look of relief on William's face. Some things were hard-pressed to change. "What are we doing here?"

"Deanna thinks it will be helpful for us to see this through as a kind of point of reference. I don't think she knows exactly what we need to conclude."

"Us? What us? We're the same person! We've spent almost a decade doing drastically different things, which makes us strangers, and Deanna thinks a kid-ensign separated for a few cold nights is going to bring us closure?" Will's face was much better at a poker face than his own, damn him. "What?"

"I'm not anymore the real William Thomas Riker than you are, you know."

"And what's that supposed to mean?"

"It means I'm just as much a pretender as you. Whether we like it or not, we're both going to have to figure out who we are, and we'll both need the other to do it." William's face and voice were genuine and tempered with years of experience. It was wisdom Thomas had definitely missed out on. He scoffed.

"What do you have to figure out? You've been living the life we were both supposed to have. You can keep going on your merry way."

"You think so?"

"Yeah, I do! You have your posting, you've been able to earn your way –"

"You and I both know we didn't exactly earn our way to that posting on the Potemkin." Silence. "You had no way of hearing this, but Captain Pressman is an Admiral, now. Thought you might want to know." Thomas couldn't figure Will's tone, but boy, did he remember Captain Pressman and his posting to the Potemkin. It was a warning.

"Any other," Thomas sought a way to sound casual. "updates? What's Lionel up to?" Lionel. The snot-nosed kid next door who had died in a traffic collision when they were kids.

"He's the same as usual. Last time I saw him, he mentioned he was congested." So, nothing had happened since the Pegasus on that front. Will nodded at the frozen figures. "I checked my duty roster for tomorrow. I've been reassigned to this room until further notice. Not sure anyone can give you orders at the moment, since your commission ended six years ago and you never had the chance to re-up. It seems you and I have nothing better to do than to finish this program." Everyone seemed so reasonable.

"Computer, resume program."

While the ensigns caught each other up over the last six months, the sun had repositioned itself over the western mountains. It would set in the next few hours. The two had ended up lying back on the roof to watch the smallest moon chase after the sun.

"All those times helping our grandparents at the farm, I never thought I'd end up doing anything agricultural."

"From the looks of it, it must run in the family."

Concerned voices floated up. Where had they gone? Where they together – were they safe? Measured British inflections informed them they were together on the temple. The two exchanged a look. It was understandable that he would be keen to keep a close eye on their whereabouts.

"Who do you think they'll send up?"

"Don't know. Maybe Phlox, except they might think he'll spook us." A minute or two later, Travis rounded the corner and casually sat down next to them.

"I didn't get to come down here last time," He commented. "It's really beautiful." Neither knew what to say to that but Travis, ever excellent at feeling out social nuances, comfortably settled back and watched the moon's progress. "People are worried that you want to stay another night," he piped up again, "but I think I can see why. Hey," he sat up. "There's something you two need to know. The captain received a patch-through communication from the brass.

"Because of some kind of political stuff surrounding the transportation technology, they've decided to raise its classification level. They're also classifying the reports of your duplication."

"Wouldn't it be difficult to hide that kind of thing once we get back to Enterprise?"

"And what about the three different vulcan ships that were sending all kinds of reports? They aren't bound by Starfleet orders." Travis shrugged.

"From what I know, their reports only ever mentioned finding a bipedal humanoid marooned on a planet, and hypothesizing that it was you. I don't know what Starfleet will tell them, but as far as the Radak is concerned, the human female they detected could have been any human female, not necessarily you. There's no reason to start throwing duplication theories into the mix."

"And when we get to Enterprise?" Another shrug.

"Since all of the senior staff are in on it, I guess that makes things easier. I don't see why they can't just swear the crew to secrecy. We've already signed all kinds of non-disclosure agreements. They might come up with some other set of orders, but I guess that isn't up to us." Travis flashed a smile. "The captain and subcommander are probably coming up with some kind of plan as we speak. You sure you won't let Phlox give you the once over? You might have injuries you don't know about."

"There's no need. Tell him thanks anyway."

"I was ordered to ask." Again, that easy smile as he got up. "Anyway, the rest of us should probably head back. Need anything?"

"Think the captain will send us on a camping trip to bond?" Thomas asked Will. The two of them watched as the two Hoshis waved off final offers of returning to the ship, opting instead to spend a night on the planet. Will chuckled.

"Doubt it. Why, are you missing the cabin?" Thomas shrugged noncommittally, but Will could see right through him. Here, the holodeck had recreated the cooling night conditions of the planet as the two comms officers settled in for a night of stars and weird root vegetables. A slight breeze was refreshing. He had – they had – grown up with extended trips into the wilderness. And while Will had to put up with bouts of confinement in environmentally controlled vessels, he was always able to go on away missions, shore leave and so on. Thomas had been trapped in a bunker for years and was now in a different box, one that hurtled around space. To feel the breeze of a holodeck had to feel like the first real breath in years.

"I'll put in for some shore leave the first chance we get," Will promised. If the holodeck was nice, imagine what true atmosphere would be like. The freedom of an M-Class planet's air, it's space and its boundlessness.

Thomas shot Will a brief look, almost shy. "That sounds good."

T'Pol would not go so far as to say she was proud. Pride was a human feature. She had done her job.

There were a number of logistics that, with all due respect to the captain, he was ill-prepared to manage. She had sealed the duplicated away kit in the captain's ready room, where only senior staff could be expected to enter under any circumstances. She had enlisted Ensign Mayweather's help to keep watch while she rifled through storage for an extra bunk bed meant for one of the shared quarters.

"Are they going to share the quarters?" Travis asked, "Wouldn't that increase their chances of being caught in the same place at the same time?"

"Correct, Ensign," she responded. "However, Starfleet command is currently drawing up new non-disclosure agreements for the crew to sign. They will be given the basic truth that Ensign Sato was somehow duplicated and the matter is being researched, thus the need for secrecy. On Enterprise, there will be no problem. It is for non-Starfleet personnel that some care will need to be taken. On Earth, there is a risk of their being caught in different places at the same time. It is likely her immediate family will be told. Ensign, you will need to procure an extra toothbrush." She smoothed down the cover of the upper bunk as she heard him murmur in assent. Living arrangements planned for the Satos's arrival, Phlox had tracked her down to insist that the duplicate remain in sickbay for a minimum of two days.

Pride was not the word. T'Pol watched the shuttlepod dock in the bay, as Travis followed the duplicates, one of them still looking wary. The ensign transported to Enterprise those months ago had grown in many ways and it was clear the ensign returning after those long months had also spent 218 Earth days living by everything a Starfleet officer could be expected to display. Pride was not a vulcan virtue, but since the communications officers were not vulcan T'Pol permitted herself to apply the term in this circumstance.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I struggled with trying to format this in a way that makes sense. Switching between the different perspectives might get confusing, but adding tons of horizontal lines between points of view seems like a lot of visual distraction. Let me know if it's hard to read and I'll go back and put them in to designate a switch in perspective.

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: Vanishing Point was a fun episode that kept me on my toes a lot. I was a little disappointed that it all boiled down to the 'it was all a dream' trope, especially with the introduction of intruding hostile aliens, but it was also cool to think about how Hoshi was able to construct hours and hours worth of experiences in a matter of seconds. Then, I saw Next Generation's episode, Second Chances, and the chance to have the two doubles share a story was too good to pass up.
> 
> This story was originally posted on Fanfiction.com in December, 2019, under the username BetaBass.


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